


By the Grace of the Fire and the Flames

by Mothwing



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Bendemption done differently, Choking, Coma, Coping with TROS, Dubious Consent, Everyone Has Issues, Everyone Is Alive, Force Choking (Star Wars), M/M, No reylo, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, self-indulgence, she can do better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 16:53:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24310129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mothwing/pseuds/Mothwing
Summary: The sight of the pale, sunken chest lifting, pausing, falling again as the valve released. Air escaped the slack mouth with a little huff. Hux’s eyes were sunken and closed. He looked so much smaller than Ben remembered, vulnerable, almost soft around the edges, all his wiry strength gone. Ben had strangled him with both the force and his bare hands before, in anger and in a lust that felt very much like anger.And even though it could have never been easier to end his life, something stopped Ben just as it had always stopped Kylo. Something about the dry patches on his hands. Something about the blue shadows under his eyes. It felt odd to say this, but there was simply no honour in killing this man. Nothing good would come from ending this life, even though, and Ben knew that, they both deserved to die. A little balance. A little justice. And you could not tell a corpse that it’d lost. Ben dismissed the thought. No one was even keeping score any more.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren
Comments: 10
Kudos: 90





	By the Grace of the Fire and the Flames

**Author's Note:**

> Moth copes with The Rise of Skywalker. Started after watching the movie and I doubt that I'll ever do with it what I want so I'm declaring it As Finished As It Will Ever Be.

The room smelled vaguely of bacta and disinfectant. The light had been lowered to 20% and the only sound was the slightly creaky sound of the machines. A creak, then air being pushed through a tube, then a release. It was eerily quiet. In the room next door, droids were scurrying about, one wheel a little squeaky. Old models, Ben knew, scheduled for demolition, like the entire tub they were sitting in.

The sight of the pale, sunken chest lifting, pausing, falling again as the valve released. Air escaped the slack mouth with a little huff. Hux’s eyes were sunken and closed. He looked so much smaller than Ben remembered, vulnerable, almost soft around the edges, all his wiry strength gone. Ben had strangled him with both the force and his bare hands before, in anger and in a lust that felt very much like anger.

And even though it could have never been easier to end his life, something stopped Ben just as it had always stopped Kylo. Something about the dry patches on his hands. Something about the blue shadows under his eyes. It felt odd to say this, but there was simply no honour in killing this man. Nothing good would come from ending this life, even though, and Ben knew that, they both deserved to die. A little balance. A little justice. And you could not tell a corpse that it’d lost. Ben dismissed the thought. No one was even keeping score any more.

***

Hux was driving him insane, not slowing down to listen to Kylo explaining his plan to him, on the glossy bridge of the _Finalizer._ Hux kept walking the length of the bridge, supervising his men, and Kylo, fuming, was forced to follow him and argued fiercely.

“—so you cannot be seriously suggesting that we continue with this course of action, it’s—”

“Sir, the report you requested is ready.”

“Excellent, thank you, Grimsby,” and Hux had given a precise nod to the officer and then immediately called it up on his datapad, leaving Kylo standing in the middle of his rant, not even hearing him out.

He had just given a turn and left, reading. Kylo had been fuming. The officer who had told him about the report had quickly bobbed his head and then scurried out of the way, back to wherever it was he worked. Kylo had heard the creak of leather and, looking down, noticed that his hands were curled into tight fists, his leather gloves straining slightly. He had relaxed them sullenly. He had first seen it in the men’s minds and eyes, when Hux talked to them. The respect, the unbending loyalty. They would do _anything_ for Hux.

When Kylo was close, he was _feared_ , not respected _._ Kylo did not know how Hux did it. And seeing Hux surrounded by his men, and effortlessly spring back from whatever Kylo and Snoke did to him between them, he felt a peculiar jealousy.

His knights were allies, but they were each focused on their own journey in the Force. They did not belong to Kylo the way Hux’s troops were... part of him. Even the people who saw him knocked down by Snoke with the Force merely helped him up and went right on idolizing him. It was driving Kylo to distraction.

He could feel the looks, the silent resentment, the small scoffs of the crew when they did not think he could see. Kylo knew about the standing order to avoid him during his meltdowns. He had read the missive and the language Hux used had been understatedly scathing, like the entire man’s attitude towards him. As though Kylo was an annoying problem that he had to work around.

As though he did not matter.

That was the worst thing of all, that brought out the worst loathing and fear. He was used to being stared at and feared, even though it had been years. He was _not_ used to being treated like a minor annoyance.

***

_Water._

_Green and heavy._

_So cold that it knocked the air out of his lungs._

_Made his chest ache like a sudden wound._

_Made moving impossible._

_Far above, barely visible, a surface, further and further away, flickering like alight._

_Forcing his body into obedience, Armitage tried to swim._

***

Ben could tell that he had been sitting too long when he realised that the armrest of the chair had left an imprint in his side that was so deep it was still visible minutes after he had stood up to stretch his legs and get something to eat.

There was little to be had on this tub, but he had to try regardless, he owed that much to Rey, to Hux, even to Mitaka, in a way. He checked the bridge and was told that things were going as well as expected, Mitaka also bringing up a series of repairs that were necessary. He did not order him to, he was too much of a diplomat for that, but it was clear what was expected of him and Ben tried not to show how overwhelmed with gratitude he was at being given something useful to do, at long last.

For the first time in years, he did repairs on a ship, and one as old as this one. Finally, his hours in the _Falcon_ came in handy. He had never fully appreciated just how good his equipment had been in the First Order, Hux had obviously always made sure that everything had been top of the line, and often customised to his personal needs, too.

It was strange how many of these details only fell into place after the fact, and he wondered how it had never occurred to him that Hux, who had his eyes and ears everywhere on the ship, had always known more about him than he’d wanted.

Ben reached for a spanner and focussed on his hands rather than the memories, even though in their rolled up sleeves, the arms and hands in front of him looked so much like his father’s by now that it was hard not to.

***

The molten durasteel was glowing angrily in front of him, Kylo was bringing his arm back for another hit.

And was suddenly staring at the ceiling.

That’s how he remembered it. One moment, he was taking apart a panel in rage and despair, the next, he was staring at the black ceiling, lightsabre still in hand, which he deactivated hastily.

Hux appeared in his field of vision, not even a hair of his head out of place, not even appearing to be rattled, and he was alone. Kylo had stared up at him in mild confusion, his head ringing from where it had connected painfully with helmet and floor. Hux was slighter than he was, but he had not anticipated the wiry strength, nor the fact that Hux could move with a speed he had believed impossible in anyone not Force-sensitive.

Hux looked down at him, a calculating look on his face. Kylo felt the flush creep up his entire body in the split second before Hux straddled him, pinning him to the black durasteel floor, cloth on cloth and the squeak of Hux’s leather boots the only sounds. He closed one hand around Kylo’s throat and reached back. Kylo felt the surprising warmth through the fabric and stopped breathing. When Hux’s hand closed around his crotch, Kylo could not stop his hips from jerking forward. He gave an involuntary gasp, which was distorted grotesquely through the vocoder, coming out sounding more like a droid or an animal than human.

He was painfully hard almost instantly and tried to force himself to calm, to focus on anything than the feeling of his pulse hammering against Hux’s hands both in his neck and in his dick. He never knew, later why he had not simply removed Hux with the Force.

Well.

He _did_ know.

But he liked to pretend not to.

Hux still had had that calculating expression.

“I thought this might do the trick,” he said, manhandling Kylo roughly through the fabric of his robes, Kylo emitting another gasp. “Don’t take your pent up frustration—“, he squeezed both Kylo’s neck and his crotch tighter— “out on my ship. Do you hear me?”

Kylo dug his fingers into the palms of his hands as hard as he could. _Not now, not now, now now_.

Hux loosened the grip somewhat and Kylo felt a shudder shake his body as he could not hold on any longer, his dick throbbing against the fabric of his robes. _No one ever. Nobody would dare. This had never._ He looked into the smug, green eyes and came, biting his lip inside the helmet to prevent another groan.

“Excellent.”

Hux paused, and Kylo, heat blooming in his face, had never been happier that he wore a mask, even though it was stiflingly hot and he felt light-headed and sweaty under his many layers. He realised that he had never seen Hux _pause_ before and decided to use the situation to his advantage by angrily shoving Hux from him and vaulting to his feet, trying to ignore the sticky, warm mess of his trousers.

“How dare you,” he roared for something to say, and ignited his lightsabre to show that he was not to be trifled with. Hux closed the distance between them again and stood so closely that his lightsabre almost signed his uniform, giving him another calculating look.

“I thought you might be amenable, being such a… physical specimen. I suggest the following. You come over to my quarters in two days, first hour of night cycle.”

And he nodded at him, the same nod with which he dismissed his men and ended board meetings, leaving Kylo standing, out of breath, covered in sweat, and feeling like a fool, hating him.

***

_The room was too close for comfort, would have been even for him and his mother, but his father’s presence was smothering. He could almost feel his tension and anger from where he was standing on the other side of the room._

_Armitage leant against the wall, trying to not to move, not to breathe._

_He could feel the bruises forming, his arms, his throat, his leg, his chest, and tried to fade into the background, into nothingness, into space, into not being noticed._

_Pryde was there, but something in Armitage was surprised at how young he looked, and his father. They were talking. He had no idea why he was here, but he knew that if he moved at all, the ramifications would be painful._

_He stood stock still, not breathing, not moving, his aching skin pulsing in time with the drums in his ears._

_At some point, it would be over, but he could not move until then._

_He tried to breathe as shallowly as he could and stave off the darkness at the corner of his eyes. If he was not careful, he was going to faint. He willed himself into motion, to walk to the door, to leave._

_He did not move._

***

The head in front of him had not nodded in a long time. His hair looked lank and had lost its copper sheen, lying on the sheets around his prone and lifeless body.

His cheekbones stuck out almost painfully sharp, and the greyish green skin tone made him look like a corpse. His hands also looked different now, the nails yellowish, the fingers that had moved so quickly and with such grace lay on the blanket, unmoving, limp.

The sound of the machine was almost soothing, but Ben found it hard to tear his eyes away from the man’s face.

It was still a shock, every time he came in, as distorted and unusual as it looked. Nothing of the man Ben had known remained. He looked like the dead man everybody believed him to be. And it felt longer, having nothing to do but emergency repairs when the other two let him, or sitting here. He still did not know why Mitaka had taken him, too.

For now, he did not particularly want to examine that, either. He sat down at the side of the bed again, the feeling of the chair against his back almost an embrace.

His place was here now.

***

Kylo had gone to Hux’s quarters in the end, after a day filled with shame and self-loathing that made Snoke praise him for his strong connection to the dark side. Anything, anything not to think of what had happened on that bridge, of the man he had killed.

He walked, shame-faced, though nobody could see, and the dark pit of guilt and loathing that opened up when he even thought about the lightness of his feet on the way to Hux’s quarters bloomed deep in him, and strengthened the connection to the pool of darkness deep, deep down even more.

When Hux did not open the door right away, he used the Force to do so, only to find Hux sitting at his desk, working, ignoring his presence. The surge of sheer dark energy filled him with a humming strength like few things could. And there was a heat to it, it was different than anger, different than hatred, and it sang in his veins like the sea.

When Hux looked up, Kylo could tell that it was a calculated show he was putting on, and he was endlessly fascinated by how coiled in on each other the many layers of his mind were.

“You came,” Hux stated, looking up, giving him a very neutral expression, but getting up and starting to open up his uniform with quick fingers. “Well? take off your clothes. You can keep the helmet on if it makes you feel better,” he had said, and the anger made Kylo feel light and fast as he closed the distance to Hux in two easy strides, stretched out his arm and picked Hux up by the neck.

What he had not expected was the curious moan coming from the man’s mouth which shocked him into releasing him again.

“So that’s what that feels like,” Hux said breathlessly, red spots creating a sharp contrast to his pale skin, stepping over to his bed, his wiry chest already bare, hands busy on the rest of his uniform. “What else can you do with that?”

Kylo had thrown off his robes and closed the distance to them again, considering leaving on the helmet, then deciding against it because it was already hard to breathe in it.

Pettily, he placed it in on Hux’s datapad.

When he turned, Hux was already sitting on the bed, stark naked, visibly unafraid. So much white skin, a taut, wiry body that was still surprisingly muscular and hardened. He had expected someone much slighter, softer.

Kylo, feeling apprehensive, suddenly wished he had not divested himself of his robes so quickly. He stretched his hands out and put out the lights.

In the dark, Hux gave a snort.

“I said you could leave it on,” he said, his voice surprisingly light. “Get over here.”

Kylo had, able to sense the man by his curiosity and—yes. Lust.

His hands were surprisingly warm and he explored Kylo’s body hungrily.

“I appreciate that you do not spend your entire time meditating, otherwise you’d probably look far more… scholarly,” he said, tracing a line from his shoulder to his navel.

“I also couldn’t do this, then,” Kylo said, trying to force himself into bravery, and pushed him back onto the bed, his hand on the hard plane of Hux’s stomach, he could feel the man gave another snort. He realised it was a laugh. Hux’s hands where on his face all of the sudden, mapping his features flutteringly, then probing his mouth open with a finger.

Kylo moved Hux’s legs apart with the Force, ignoring the small gasp the other man gave, and rolling between them. He stopped in his tracks when he felt Hux crossing his ankles over his backside, making the other man pause in his movements, too.

“Are you even allowed to do this?” Hux’s voice in the dark had an odd sound of curiosity. “I thought you Force users had to observe— _ngh_ —celibacy. Steady,” he added, his hand on Kylo’s hips staying his movements. “Let’s not overdo ourselves here. On this occasion.”

The implication that there could be more than one sent a spark of a different sort all through Kylo’s body. Still, his dick against Hux’s stirred all sorts of dark fires in him and Kylo froze in place, forced himself into stillness so as to not come immediately. He heard his own breath pant in the darkness.

Hux uncrossed his ankles and expertly deposited Kylo on the bed next to him so quickly that Kylo had no time to react, but then, Hux’s hand was on Kylo again.

“Touch me,” Hux said, and, when his hands rustled the blanket, “Not like that.”

Hux’s hand on his dick was inexplicably slick, and the feeling of the warm, sticky liquid on his dick was unexpected and wonderful. Lube, he realised. Hux must be using lube. Hux had been expecting him. Hux had wanted this to happen. Hux wanted him. Kylo’s hips jumped and his sharp intake of breath made the other man freeze, then let go, leaving Kylo feel bereft, and a shame grew in him, dark and rich.

He reached out with the Force and touched Hux’s throat, lightly closing around it, eliciting a soft gasp, then stroked down his front, closing around his dick instead. Hux gave a strangled groan, then eased Kylo’s legs open, and Kylo was too busy concentrating on touching Hux and controlling himself that he did not realise that suddenly, Hux was probing his insides with his finger. The strange pressure the feeling caused was not unpleasant but alien enough to snap his attention very much to his own body. Hux _did_ something, and Kylo heard a yelp that was his own, and saw stars, his entire body shaking, breathing hard and fast. 

He felt so incredibly limp and weak afterwards and for a few moments he was at peace with this and the world and felt very much connected to Hux, all of what that man was, all his complicated layers. _Hux_ of all people, the last one who was supposed to witness him like this. He could also feel the things that were so different, and missing. There was no softness left, everything had become hard, lean edges, calculations, needs and fulfilment, there was no sentimentality left that Hux had not eliminated.

If Kylo had been standing, he would have sunken to his knees in admiration. He had never met a non-Force user who had been able to focus that strongly on goals and their accomplishment and could put themselves aside to such a degree, it was remarkable, it was inspiring. Kylo realised that he’d been lying in bliss and that Hux was probably laughing at him.

 _No_ , quiet pleasure, he noted. Still, this could not stay unretaliated. He pinned Hux to the bed with the Force and grabbed the other man’s dick again, heard Hux’s breath hitching and stroked him, hard. It did not take long for the man to emit a grunt, straining against Kylo’s hold on him, and then collapsing onto his bed.

Kylo observed eagerly, feeling the same odd connection, but also keeping a lookout for signs of weakness which never came. Hux had had a desire, and fulfilled it the most efficient way he knew, and now, he was going to do something else. Hux rolled to his feet.

“Alright, good. We should do this again. You can shower either here or in your own quarters.”

Then he was in the ‘fresher and Kylo was left alone in the dark. He could sense Hux’s odd sense of calm elation, and not of _victory_ per se, but he seemed to think that he had had the upper hand somehow. Kylo hated to acknowledge that this was probably right. Kylo also realised that he had probably never felt closer to the darkness than he had at the side of this man.

***

_The blaster felt heavy in his arms, but Armitage knew he could not move until he had got the enemy in his sights._

_The shouts of men around him were a wall of noise, the screams of the dying, the sound of blaster fire and the crackling of flames somewhere close._

_But he could not move, dared not to breathe out until he had the head in his sights._

_Aimed._

_Shot._

_He could feel the kick in his entire body, and, incongruously, also in his chest._

_And he fell and hit the ground, backwards into the dirt, among the bodies, and he could finally not keep himself from looking over at the face next to his, Sorn’s black eyes staring at the sky, his face filled with a mild confusion, lips slightly parted for a kiss he would never receive._

_Hux tried not to breathe, to stifle the thing clawing at his insides. Sorn was gone now, it could not be changed, but if Hux wanted to stay alive, he had to move._

_He closed his eyes, willing himself to stand up._

***

Ben jerked awake as the droid squeaked past him. He had not even realised he had fallen asleep. The room around him was as claustrophobic and dark as ever. By now, he realised that it was that dark because the droids did not require that much light to go about their duties by and they needed to conserve the energy to keep Hux alive. The rest of the ship was not much brighter, though the First Order had never been known for its brightly lit interiors.

He tried to reach out to Hux with the Force.

Failed again.

Did not thump the bed.

Tried not to think about Rey, tried not to rage at her in his mind that it was so much harder than he would have ever believed, this redemption business. A heroic death would have been a much cleaner end. It was not the only thing he very much envied his grandfather for.

Did Hux look... less dead? The droid had attached another bacta patch and the skin looked a little better, but if he looked this weak after having been immersed for so long in the tank Mitaka had stolen, he did not know if he should get his hopes up. He did not talk to the droids.

After an hour, one came to change his own bandages. It was surprisingly painful, and he wondered if that was what Hux was feeling.

***

On that icy planet, dying in the snow, Kylo had felt him coming, a beacon of red-hot anger at being sent personally to retrieve the Supreme Leader’s Apprentice. Hux rescued him, even as his life’s work crumbled around him, and dragged him to medbay. Kylo knew it was Snoke who had sent him, but he liked to tell himself that Hux also rescued him for himself, a little bit.

Hux did not initiate anything for a long while afterwards, and Kylo had been too raw to make himself vulnerable, but about a week after, his door opened, and Hux strode in, a hard anger in his eyes. Kylo suddenly sensed he blamed him, in part, for what had happened to _Starkiller_ and was startled into anger himself.

They did not speak, Kylo tossed aside his chair and tried to lift Hux onto his desk, but Hux had a different idea. With a swift motion, he had deposited Kylo face-first on the floor, knelt over him, and tugged down his trousers. Kylo let him, feeling shame and humiliation course through him, closing his eyes, feeling it take root in the darkness he craved.

When Hux plunged his fingers into him, it was rough, though he had used lube. Being stretched open hurt and stung, and when Hux entered him not long after, it felt like being torn in half. He forced himself not to cry out and focused on his breathing instead, on the current of darkness flowing through him like flames.

Hux’s hand on his skin felt like fire, feverish and possessive. Kylo lost himself the feeling of Hux moving inside him, of his hands holding him down, on the unexpected weight on his back.

There was no sound but the slick sound of Hux sliding in and out, cloth on cloth, his hands on the steel floor, their choppy breaths. No one spoke.

He had lost all sense of time, but could hear Hux’s quiet breathing reach a staccato and realised that he was hard himself, that he was undeniably aroused by this, the feeling dark and forbidding. Kylo became aware of a rattling sound and realised that it was him, that it was raw Force, causing everything in this room to vibrate in place.

Hux came with a grunt and roughly removed himself from Kylo, who lay there, panting, hard, soiled. Another voice added to the dark chorus within. After a moment, Hux took a deep breath and roughly turned Kylo over, matter-of-factly reaching for his dick.

The leather on his skin felt surprisingly cool. Kylo could not take his eyes off of Hux’s face, the red spots in his skin, the way the pallor and the red created a contrast to the green of his irises, the strangely focussed look. He knew it from board meetings and from Hux working, he was deeply concentrated and Kylo found the razor sharp attention surprisingly arousing.

He did not even try to hold on and spilled himself over Hux’s gloves in short order. He felt Hux was doing this so they’d be even, just as he had taken his anger out on Kylo to create a sense of balance, too. Hux got up, removing his gloves, and went into the ‘fresher without a word or another look at him.

Kylo kept lying on the ground for a long while, luxuriating in the feelings this created, the utter darkness of it. Then, he divested himself of his robes and followed him into the ‘fresher. He was in the process of getting dressed again, sans gloves. With efficient, rapid movements. Naked, Kylo stood next to him, uncertain about his next actions. He was aching, sore, and pretty sure he was bleeding. 

Hux was already thinking of other things again, of his to do list, but Kylo could sense that he felt… more relaxed somehow, calmer, centred. Curious, Kylo looked for any sense of gentleness in the other man, of what that would look like to him. He did not seem to have a lot of patience with it. The only examples he could find were all from Hux’s childhood. He had been very small, and turned his face and hid it in soft fabric. A hand reaching for his. A hand resting on his head. Those were all that was there. He had little patience for this, Kylo noticed. Everything in him was drive, calculation, survival. There was no room for rest, for slacking, for losing advantages. Things were either useful or stripped away.

Kylo was awe-struck. Not even after all the years with Snoke, he had managed to get rid of things rooting him in the Light to that degree. His own head was teeming with memories of tenderness, kindnesses, other sentimentalities. Hux simply ignored all of that until it had faded into oblivion.

Experimentally, Kylo reached out for Hux’s face. Radiating confused impatience, Hux slapped the hand away before it connected and looked at him quizzically.

“Getting sentimental, Ren?”

It was intended to cut and Kylo was surprised at how much it did. He glared at Hux, used the Force to hold him still, and put the hand on his throat instead.

“I have no time for this,” Hux croaked, impatiently, struggling against the hold. Kylo let go and stepped into the shower, not touching him again, and the doors to his quarters swooshed shut. 

***

_Fires were everywhere, and the odd slant of the ship told its own story. Something crucial had failed, only seconds were left. Armitage was running, running, unable to feel his breath or his legs anymore, desperately trying to get to the escape pods._

_There were no other people moving in the empty corridors, only the dead and dying accompanied his frantic journey._

_Finally, he arrived, saw a cloud of pods already moving away into space and towards the other destroyers, some of which already exploding into silent, blooming fire clouds, shot down by the Resistance on the way._

_Where, where—_

_One pod, an open door, one seat left. He sped up, fire and pressure tearing at his lungs._

_“Hux!”_

_From the corner of his eye, he could see the other man come running from the opposite direction, quickly closing the distance between them and the pod._

_Morley._

_Hux had to concentrate not to stumble in shock, a bolt of happiness flashing through him. He was alive! Soft hair, softer mouth, laughing eyes. Hux could still feel his skin on his, and his scent in his nose._

_There was only one seat left._

_Desperately, he reached out and shoved, his eyes not following the tumbling body, jumped into the pod, which immediately started moving._

_He did not look back._

***

Hux’s right hand had curled into a first and the droid was persistently uncurling it so as to keep his nails from digging into the soft flesh of his palms. Very self-consciously, Ben reached out and took it, holding it tight.

He knew that he had only imagined the small frown on Hux’s face. And yet, maybe it was really there. He watched it ease away.

Three days out of the bacta tank, and Hux did not look much better than he did when droids had taken him out. Mita-- _Dop_ held had come by and sat with them for a while, before going back to running the ship. He had tentatively suggested that Ben help out again, fixing the many necessary repairs that had arisen over the night. The tub they were in was really a constant work in progress.

After a long while, reluctantly, he went. Making himself useful to others was probably a good step, something Rey would approve of. He reached for her, but of course just felt nothing. Angrily, he reached for the toolkit.

***

Kylo was shocked back into consciousness by the conflict next to him. Someone was wondering if they should kill him or not or if he was more useful alive. Someone who was also ignoring the pain shooting Kylo would cause to him with a practiced ease that intimidated Kylo. Hux would not have had any problems killing Han Solo. Hux _had_ killed his father, of course, but he had been no Han Solo.

Kylo had acted almost on autopilot, so much had happened, so focused on his pain, the _Supremacy_ breaking to pieces around him, and finding Rey. At that moment, she had seemed the only real person in the entire world, everything around him an illusion.

Only Hux’s dismissive words really snapped him back to the present, made him focus on the man himself rather than on Rey, the feeling her distance caused. He had been so close. Characteristically, Hux would have none of it.

“Finish this? You presume to command my army? We have no ruler. The Supreme Leader is dead.”

There had been a world of possibility in this sentence, as cautious as it was. Hux did not see himself as Supreme Leader, not having been able to end Kylo’s life, but Kylo knew that he also would not truly accept Kylo as leader. 

“The Supreme Leader is dead,” Kylo had echoed, as much to himself as to Hux. He could still see the faint regret lingering in Hux’s mind at not having acted faster and shot him. Kylo panicked. Hux _must_ see that it was highly unlikely that the scavenger had done it, and there was no one else standing in the room. Hux needed to be contained, and fast. Kylo later liked to pretend to himself that he had reached out to choke the general as a calculated intimidation tactic rather than to punish him for having wanted to shoot him before.

And fear did spike through the other man, a mere instinct. But then the mind behind it rallied, awake to a new reality which seemed to click into place for Hux rather organically, a natural conclusion of something that he now saw as the truth, only that Kylo had no idea what it was just yet.

“Long live the Supreme Leader,” Hux croaked in acknowledgement, even congratulatorily.

Kylo’s hand fell back to his side. _Really?_ Kylo briefly touched the general’s mind, who was rubbing his neck now gingerly, as fires continued to flicker around them. The other man really did believe that. Kylo had bested Snoke, Kylo was Supreme Leader. It was as simple as that. Hux would support him, though his views on Kylo had not changed. He still saw him as a volatile minor annoyance who would be difficult to serve while working to advance the First Order. Kylo almost choked him again.

How could he disregard that Kylo had just bisected the man they had both followed for years in cold blood? How could he be so— _alright_ with the bloody corpses littered around them? How could this be so natural to Hux, and so deeply horrific to Kylo, in his heart of hearts?

This was the hardiness and inherent violence that Kylo had never _fully_ understood until he had seen Snoke wipe the floor with Hux and split his lip. Kylo had felt Snoke’s rage and his own heart had beaten faster at this in fear. Hux had also been nervous, but Kylo had felt no reaction to that from the bridge staff apart from a faint acceptance. Some looking faintly amused, others clearly feeling for Hux, most of them had simply been happy that they had not been high up enough to give Snoke any bad news.

Hux had not lost anybody’s respect after that, either. In First Order culture, it was apparently perfectly ordinary for inferiors to be punished violently, with all available force, and most of them had been raised to expect physical pain from anyone in a position to inflict it, be it as a child or an adult. Extreme measures like the one Snoke used on Hux were simply in keeping with their respective positions, the crew felt.

Everything in him that was still Ben found this unconscionable, vile, and recoiled. He understood combat, he understood killing the enemy, but the droid like humans around him, he did not understand, and did not have a lot of respect for, either. Snoke could have cut a limb off of Hux and his bridge crew would have helped him to medbay, shrugged, and gotten on with their work.

This thing, deep, which that had been instilled in him by both his parents, did not understand this culture. Rey had gotten enough of a hold on him by that time that he remembered that part of his life again. And while fighting enemies and destroying them in combat was necessary, raising human beings to expect to be useful, mistreated tools and then die in the line of duty was…just not good idea. It did not even make those raised in this system stronger in the dark side, it just made them feel a permanent undercurrent of self-loathing, fear, and anger, but it was a permanent background drone, none of the sweet, burning personalised hatred you elicited by being someone’s personal enemy.

Kylo went on quietly disdaining the First Order and delighting in the vengeance Snoke had taken on Hux in the knowledge that it would humiliate Hux and show him his place, not bothering to check if his impressions were true.

As Supreme Leader himself, he only wanted the men to do as he said, and he did. He also wanted Hux to defer to him, though, and curiously, he did not. He realised some important truths about the man, after he ran into Hux in med-bay after Crait.

Kylo was still raw himself, but he was also convinced that he had _finally_ been able to show Hux his place, to force him to respect or at least to fear him.

He had known that Hux’s ribs had cracked in the impact, but there was no personalised loathing rolling off of the man, he was just… neutral. Understanding, even. You had the power, you used it. It made sense. It had been unlucky timing on his own part, but that’s where they were, and he was still alive and still had his position. Hux still did not respect him. Still did not fear him. He would do what he could to further his own agenda, but he knew that Kylo was going to use his strength. Hux was more cautious of his outbreaks, but that was about the only change in his feelings towards Kylo that he could feel. Kylo did not know whether to be angry or relieved. Anger came more naturally to him.

“Supreme Leader.”

The nod had been respectful, and he had just passed him by.

Intrigued, Kylo had come by his quarters later on, and opened his doors with the Force. The look Hux had given him from his desk had been tired more than anything else, and Kylo only felt mild annoyance from him again, as well as the expectation of pain. _Now what_ , Hux thought. And, when Kylo just stood there, staring, _well, get on with it, some of us have work to do._

He’d gone over to the desk wordlessly and picked up Hux with the Force, knowing that he’d have to be violent about it if he wanted to get what he wanted. He had grabbed Hux by the throat and tossed him back onto his bed, preventing him from getting right back to his feet by holding him there.

“This is highly inappropriate, _Su_ preme _Le_ ader,” Hux said, with difficulty, against the hold Kylo still had on his throat. The inflection he gave his title was still despondent. Kylo had not answered, missing his helmet suddenly. “I am in your chain of command, after all.” His venomous tones suggested he knew Kylo did not care about that.

Kylo forcibly stripped him, they had done this and enjoyed it before, and again, there was the same level of interest. Hux did not even hold this against him _, it was strength he had enacted on someone weaker, what else was he going to do? And maybe he was going to get some pleasure out of it, too,_ he was thinking as he eyed Kylo with his usually calculating look.

Kylo shook his head to dislodge this unpleasant feeling and carefully removed the rest of the uniform, trying not to disturb the bandages. Hux, still immobilised, looked on in confusion, then in a mild anger. _Was Kylo trying to shame him? Why waste his time like that?_ Kylo stared into Hux’s eyes, focussing on him alone, ignoring all the other things in his mind.

He circled one of the man’s nipples, gently cupping his balls, and covered his bruised skin in light touches, trying to use the Force to ease the pain, though he was not sure that was even possible. He could feel the delicious humiliation coursing through Hux as his body relaxed and opened to the sensations, immobile.

“What do you want?” Hux asked, straining against the hold Kylo had on him, his face as red as his hair.

“I do not answer your questions,” Kylo said.

Hux gave him a calculating look.

“Well? Get on with it, _Su_ preme _Lea_ der,” Hux said. Kylo did not know how to respond, so he merely pulled Hux’s legs apart with his hands. 

Hux sucked in a breath, the only sound apart from their skin brushing against each other, that was the only sound. Kylo became aware of the fact that he was painfully hard. As, he realised, was Hux, who was eyeing him frankly.

Kylo hated that he did not call him ‘Ren’ anymore, he realised. Grabbing the lube from the nightstand with the Force, he roughly plunged his fingers into Hux, the other man sucking a breath through his teeth in pain, briefly pressing his head against the white sheets.

Kylo forced himself to slow down and go back to his original plan. He slowed his movements and forced himself to be gentle, to ignore the small supressed groans the other man was emitting. Kylo knew his face was bright read.

He even released Hux from his Force hold and the other man’s hands immediately flew to the blaster on the nightstand, though Kylo could sense he was not going to shoot him. He held him still regardless, Hux changing tack and now straining against the Force hold as Kylo took his fingers out of him. _Please_. Invitation. Longing. It was faint, but there regardless. Hux did not look at him.

Feeling almost light-headed, Kylo entered him, his eyes fluttering shut at how good this felt. They had rarely done this, and it was always a special treat. When he could open his eyes again, he saw that Hux’s eyes were tightly closed, though the small movements of his hips, the fine sheen of sweat and the flush of his face told their own story.

Hux’s internal _Yes, yes, yes, this, good_ , _more, harder, make it hurt_ made Kylo’s own heart beat even faster. He stopped all movements and waited for their breaths to calm down somewhat, stroking Hux’s skin with invisible hands, chasing goose bumps over the pale skin. A small crease had appeared on Hux’s forehead, he was uncertain. Kylo waited for the gentle flutter of relaxation he had felt before, and there it was.

He touched Hux’s skin so gently that he could barely be able to feel his hands, with the Force and his real hands, teasing his balls, his dick, his lips, the sensitive skin of his neck, every inch of his skin he could find, every inch of his skin he knew had been bruised at some point, until Hux was a quivering mess staring up at Klyo, who was keeping up a very slow rhythm, pressing in with each slow inhale and withdrawing with each exhale.

It was torture, for both of them. Kylo was barely keeping it together, holding on to his rapidly disintegrating self-control with all his strength. Hux had fought the gentleness of what Kylo was doing with all his willpower and only recently subsided into just feeling, just absorbing what Kylo was doing, with an entirely wondering look that was so unguarded all of the sudden that Kylo did not know how he could be looked at like that and keep his self-control.

When Hux’s breaths were shallow, and desperate, and hitched whenever Kylo pressed into him, his stomach rubbing over Hux’s painfully hard dick, Kylo inclined his head and kissed him, with gently fluttering movements. He felt Hux tense, his entire body clenching, then release with something that sounded like a hiccupping sob.

His feelings hit Kylo, who had been monitoring him, like a tidal wave, of heat, longing, desire, things that happened so long that he had forgotten them, of other people, of the way his body felt right now, because it had never felt quite like _this_ , of a pleasure so deep it was painful enough to destroy Hux.

The sheer magnitude of the emotion tipped Kylo right over the edge, tangled up in Hux’s emotions and unable to escape their grasp. Kylo’s blood roared in his ears and he let go, spending himself into Hux, his face buried in the other man’s hair, his face screwed up as though in pain, knowing that he mirrored Hux’s expression, that his eyes were not the only ones whose were wet with tears.

Then, as soon as it had begun, it was over, Hux having regained control over his emotions, like lightning that struck with immense force and was gone. He gently pushed at Kylo’s shoulder.

Kylo, still reeling from the sheer depth and heat that had just coursed through him, could not focus. He gently disentangled himself from Hux’s mind and Hux’s body. The other man’s face asked a frank question Kylo was not ready for.

He tried to control his breathing, getting up rather too quickly to walk to the ‘fresher, the room spinning about him, but then something called him back, and he leant over to Hux and kissed him deeply. Hux answered him with a hunger that made it seem as though he had not been touched in years. Something broke in Kylo and he felt a small sound escape his lips, desperate. Then, Hux’s cool hand gently pushed him back again, his face serious.

“We cannot afford this,” Hux breathed into the close silence, his face seeking Kylo’s face “Neither of us. Supreme Leader,” he added.

“Don’t,” Kylo said, closing his eyes.

“It simply is not the time, and it may never be, we likely won’t survive this war,” Hux said, sounding wistful, as though what had just happened was already a distant, yet treasured memory of something that had happened once and was not to be.

“Don’t,”Kylo repeated. “We can _make_ time.”

Hux gave a snort, took his face into his hands, his thumbs caressing his cheekbones briefly, and then Kylo felt the gentle press of Hux’s lips against his forehead.

It was so uncharacteristic for Hux that Kylo’s eyes snapped open, his heart hammering in his chest. Hux’s face was very close and his eyes were large, and of the deep green of forest lakes. Kylo wanted to drown in them.

“You don’t believe that, Ren,” Hux said, letting go of his face. “You should not come back here, Supreme Leader,” he added, and left for the ‘fresher.

All business.

All back to usual.

Gulping down tears, Kylo hated him with a sudden heat he had never felt before.

***

_Hux was running along burning corridors again, the walls of some ship –which one?—closing in, collapsing, the air too hot to breathe. This was a drill, he knew, but he needed to get through it or he would_ fail _, and that was unconscionable._

_He felt eyes on him and for a moment did not knew whose –Ren’s, Snoke’s, Pryde’s, his father’s, just that they were waiting for him to stumble and be consumed by flames._

_Not today. He had escaped the others in his group and he would be damned if he did not complete this exercise faster and with better marks than any of them._

_He reached the corridor that led to the exit and heard footsteps in the distance. With a grim smile, he stepped through one of the doors and closed it behind him, the heat of the metal searing the flesh of his hand as he closed them off. Let them stay behind as he was supposed to have been._

_He looked up at the ceiling, where he knew cameras were watching him, raising his hand in mock-salute, then curling his hand into a tight fist. He was going to survive._

_The air got harder and harder to breathe and he could feel his entire chest contracting, fires all around him, pain beating a drum in his temples._

_He looked around, desperately. A way out, a way out._

_There was always one._

_He was going to find it._

***

The inertial dampeners were about to just give up and die, Ben knew. He, FN-2133 and Dopheld had been working on them all day. It was odd, interacting with these men in such an intimate way who’d been mere faces in the crowd until five days ago. He could always sense the strange bond between them, but seeing it now unfold, in an almost relaxed fashion, after having left behind the rigidity of the First Order, was still very strange to him. Especially the usually proper and reserved Dopheld was surprisingly warm with the former Stormtrooper.

Ben did not pry, but even without the force he could tell that theirs had been a longer story and they both could not quite believe that they were here, together, at last. And even without the Force he could see that they clung together for dear life. Threes had sat with Hux a few times, talking to him, and from the unusually taciturn man this had been odd. Not as odd as seeing him out of his uniform. Ben had almost not recognised him when he had first run into the shorter man, his bright blue eyes a shocking contrast to his dark skin. For someone who had undergone such extensive programming, his face was highly expressive. He was clearly worried for Hux, he was in love with Dopheld, he felt weary around Ben, and he was frequently very, very lost. Sitting with Hux seemed to provide a lot of stability for him.

He knew that to the Stormtroopers, Hux had always been indestructible. Snoke could not break him. _Nothing_ could break him. And as Ben looked over the pale body in front of him, he realised that not even _shooting_ him had broken Hux. Everything that anybody had ever hurled at the man seemed to be no more than a temporary setback. Even Pryde had never succeeded in breaking Hux, he realised, shame washing over him in a tidal wave. Ben placed a hand on Hux’s cold forehead and felt the muscles under his palm reassemble the frown which took so long to relax.

Ben knew from Hux’s personnel files that Pryde had worked with his father, and he knew from Hux’s nightmares that Brendol Hux had not been a nice man indeed and was the reason Hux expected violent punishment from stronger people and that the only people worth keeping around were those useful. Back then, he had relished telling Hux that he had moved his flag to Pryde’s ship and effectively demoted Hux. There had been a sense of annoyance that flashed through Hux’s mind, then back to careful planning, managing the beast, is what the experience was for him.

“I’m sorry,” he told Hux, and he did not know how often he had spoken those words in the past five days, if this was the thousands time or the first, the lack of effect was the same.

***

“I disagree, _general_ , we ought to pursue the course suggested by Supreme Leader,” Pryde said, nodding his confirmation at Kylo.

Hux blinked, standing at parade rest next to Pryde, and otherwise not showing a reaction but a faint nervousness and annoyance that accompanied him everywhere these days.

“Very well,” Kylo said, gesturing towards Pryde, who met his eyes briefly and left. Kylo would have never admitted it, but even he felt uncomfortable under the lizard gaze of that man and was glad to have his helmet back at times. Awful, reptilian fellow, mind so coiled in on itself and drenched in his own arrogance that it was difficult to stand. As Kylo knew, he had witnessed some of Hux’s greatest humiliations as a child. Kylo had seen the memories float close to the surface in Pryde’s head, the slender teenager, possessing of a wiry strength that Kylo knew all too well but that made him appear weak and diminutive in Pryde’s eyes. Surely his presence and constant reminder of how useless he had been would even slightly humble the man?

Hux, now standing alone in front of Kylo, did not indicate this. There was a faint annoyance and slight unease that accompanied him everywhere these days. And contempt for this decision.

Anger flashed through Kylo, and before he knew it, he had pinned Hux against the wall with the force, and in Hux’s mind he could see a deep resignation. _No_. Kylo stopped in his track, suddenly ashamed of himself. Hux took in air with a gasp.

“Well, Supreme Leader, what will it be?” Hux rubbed his neck and looked at him frankly.

“I need to find him,” Kylo said, willing him to accept this explanation, willing him to understand the necessity of this, to see reason. Hux nodded, and Kylo knew he understood nothing. Anger coursed through him again, and before he knew it, Hux was pinned to the wall again, Kylo’s own rage making him vibrate in place.

“You’d rather see the entire galaxy burn before you stop this foolishness,” Hux spat.

Kylo slapped him. It was that or tear him in half. Hux’s eyes glinted with hatred before his professional mask was back. Hux dabbed at his lip and bobbed his head.

“Apologies, Supreme Leader.”

“Don’t you _understand_?” Kylo asked, harshly gripping his collar.

“Of course,” Hux lied, and Kylo did not like the fires glinting in the depths of those green eyes. He had shoved him physically and stormed off, knowing that he had lost, hating him.

He had felt the tug not soon after. Rey. Rey prodding him to find out where on earth the intense hatred was coming from. Prodded him to examine it, and when he did, he realised it was really not worth the effort, and was really something very different.

When the Final Order started taking hits in unexpected places, Kylo put it down to sloppiness and ignored it, making a point of not even reading the reports Hux submitted to him with an odd sense of satisfaction, each data pad put down in front of Kylo with extra emphasis, somehow.

When Kylo brought down a spy, he could sense some of it, but still refused to see that there was a very obvious candidate of someone who would rather see the Final Order and himself burn than succeed, rage burning in him in a way that was so alien to Kylo that it was impossible for him to understand.

When Pryde informed him gleefully that the spy had been found, he was not ready to face who it was. When he heard the name, he refused to believe it, though everything in him screamed it was true.

This was so close to Kylo’s own death that he had barely taken it in at the time, so busy was his mind with Rey and Palpatine and, well, _death_. He sensed it coming, in a sense had sensed it coming all along. He went willingly, embracing it with open arms.

Only that things were never as easy as that, and he had woken up, surrounded by fire, on a failing ship, feeling only half himself because the Force had gone. He was possessed only with finding him.

And at the end, his own vision failing, faint to the bone, stumbling there through fire, Ben was not ready for the sight, even though he knew what was coming, even though when he had torn through medbay Mitaka had shouted at him to stop, stopped short in front of the bacta tank, heart thumping in his ears, saw him, fell to his knees.

He had hated him, and hated him, and now he was as good as dead. You could not beat a dead man. He had lost, even now. Hux’s hair moved lazily through the liquid like flames, and when his vision turned black and he lost everything and himself.

***

_Pryde fired at his chest and it exploded inwards. He could almost still hear it, the bolt cutting through his flesh. He thought he could see his troops cheering as the ball of white hot rage engulfed him and exploded outwards, taking millions of lives with it. It was the blaster gun, and it was the weapon._

_He tried to see a way out, but there was nowhere to run._

_He stood to attention, like his father had taught him._

_A Hux did not run._

_He looked at the white hot fire calmly, expectantly._

_He had killed, and now he was ready to die._

***

It had been a week since they set out from the chaos, and things had fallen into a weary pattern. It seemed as though there had never been a different life, however, as though it had always been Dopheld, Threes, Ben, and Hux in his bed. As though they had always been this tentative unit.

Ben was sitting at Hux’s bed when the readings on the machines changed, and then the machine breathing for him disengaged. He almost jumped out of his skin, panicking, desperate, thinking Hux had died.

“He is stabilising,” the medical droid said in its rather parental voice. “He is on the road to recovery.”

And Ben had collapsed back into the seat, so full of emotion that he did not know what to do with himself.

***

Kylo had known peace like never before when his body hit the ground in the Citadel. He had atoned. He had done everything he could, and had saved Rey, and now he was ready to become one with the Force and see his father again, meet his grandfather, just stop and rest forever, say farewell to the continuous struggle.

And then, he had woken up, smoke from some unseen fire clogging his lungs, his very alive heartbeat sounding loud in his ears.

“WHY?” he had cried out, in pain, in despair.

And in a flash of cool understanding, Rey had shown him.

He had lost his connection to the Force. He was not dead. Nobody wanted him to die, either, since all unnatural death took form the world. Ben was alive, and he could atone now. A death could not do that, but a life dedicated to righting wrongs and to simply trying to do right could.

Also, Rey let him know in her way that was as familiar to him by now as his own breathing, there had simply been enough deaths to last life times, and one death could not atone for another death, she understood, it was simply another death. It was not how balance worked.

To truly end this war, he understood through her eyes, you did not have to kill the enemy, he realised. You had to create something. You had to reach out to him. And you always had to start with yourself. Rey left him then, a parting soft like a kiss to the forehead, and took all the mighty and magnificent connection to the Force with her.

Surrounded by smoke, pain igniting his entire body, feeling as weak as he must have done the day he was born, Ben sank to his knees, feeling utterly, utterly alone.

All was black, and when he came to, he realised that he was on a small craft, strapped to the co-pilot’s chair. Threes had been flying and given a squeaky scream when he realised Ben had woken up. Threes had called for Dopheld, who had taken over from Threes and explained how he had stowed Hux safely hidden in a compartment labelled as storage, how he had tried to steer his craft out of harms way in the battle and chaos but the controls had brought him here and how he had only gained control back once Kylo was aboard.

 _Rey_. It must have been. And here he was, and within him, the understanding that she had tried to give him was taking root. If he was honest to himself, he could see that this understanding of the Light and balance had always been there, beneath the veneer of pain.

He had always taken the story of his grandfather to mean that sacrificing yourself was the ultimate redemption, but now he realised that while that was true, Ben had been wrong about the nature of the sacrifice.

Redemption was a life sentence, and he could only make it count by reaching out to as many people as he could and make them see the truth of that.

It was going to be harder than anything he had ever done and yet, he realised, it was also more necessary. Too much had already been lost to the world, it was paramount to prevent more deaths. And Hux could help so much in preventing the flying tatters of the First Order to do anything foolish.

And Ben was a fool if he believed that this pale man’s survival was not also deeply important to him for other reasons. Hux had been there when nobody else had dared reach out to him. Of course it had been for horrible, twisted reasons, but he believed in his soul that another path was possible.

There were always at least two, after all.

*** 

_The fires had gone out, there were only falling embers, seemingly far away. It was too warm and the air was close, like it sometimes had gotten when Armitage had hidden his face under the blanket during his Academy days, trying to cry as quietly as he could._

_There was a large empty space in front of him, and a dark nothingness, the emptiness that stars were born in. Maybe this was death, maybe this was the Dark Side Ren had always talked about. But the small glimpses of light in the dark, falling like dying embers or dying stars, seemed to hint that it was something else entirely._

_And there was a presence, as though a person he knew had stepped into the room in the dark, someone he knew should be there._

_It was the scavenger, he realised. He did not feel the surge of adrenaline he anticipated, just a calm acceptance. There was nothing that he could do against whatever she was going to do, he was dead, after all._

_He felt under intense scrutiny, but he was familiar with it from his time with Supreme Leader Snoke. He was used to being torn open, every inch of weakness exposed and prodded._

_Armitage waited._

_What came was not the searing glare that he was used to, nor the heat. She was looking for something, and after a while seemed to find it._

_Armitage felt a sensation like being wrapped in a blanket, and when he took a deep sigh of relief, he inhaled a scent so familiar and safe it was balm to his entire being._

_“Take this,” said her voice in the dark. “It is the beginning. It is what you lost. It can help you relearn everything you need.”_

_It was suddenly as though she had left, and he was standing in the dark, wrapped in the blanket that had his mother’s scent deep within it. He drew it so close around him it sank into him, warming Armitage all over._

_For the first time in decades, he felt whole, he felt safe._

***

“Why.”

The voice was so quiet and filled with loathing that Ben could almost not hear it. Ben had to think for a long while before answering it.

“Dopheld saved you. I’m here because. Well. He took me, too.”

“How are you alive? I would have thought that the scavenger would have finished you off,” Hux whispered.

Ben was quiet for a long time, searching for words. He could see Hux was still awake, though, when he did answer.

“You do not restore balance by sacrificing or taking lives, Hux. I can’t really explain it better. You can only restore balance by… giving your own life. I understand that now. I hadn’t before. We both lost, Hux. The First Order lost. The Dark Side lost. Their pieces both still exist, but they are never going to be as strong. And we will have to live with that. Help it fail more, even.”

Hux actually snorted.

“Should have left me to die,” he croaked.

Ben positioned himself so that the other man had to look into his eyes.

“Yes, of course death would have been simpler. And yet, here we are. And that is also something that we have to live with.”

“Why are you here?”

“Dopheld also retrieved my body, because he thinks that I matter to you. I don’t know why he thinks that.”

“Because he is a sentimental fool who found out we were having sex and decided it meant we were in a relationship.”

Ben did not reply, and after a moment he could see Hux’s eyes creeping over to him.

“Hux, you are good at surviving,” he said quietly. “And you did. What you do with that is up to you, but it’s going to be impossible on your own. You don’t trust me, but I’m telling you that you can, because I am in your position.

“Yes, I know you think that I have this old life that I can just run back to, but I had to give that up. I have lost…” he could not even say it without feeling torn in half. All the things he had done, and what for? _Rey_ , a voice said in his head that sounded like Luke’s from before, from when he was small, from when Ben still believed him. _It was for Rey_. “… I lost my connection to the Force.”

He saw Hux had started to shake, and when he looked over, he saw that Hux was laughing silently.

“What?” the anger was very familiar.

“A general without his army and a Jedi Knight without the Force. Perfect,” Hux whispered tonelessly.

In retaliation, Ben reached out and took his hand. He saw the small frown and then sat and watched it disappear. It took a very long time. After an even longer time, their hands had become uncomfortably sticky with sweat, he felt a light pressure and realised that Hux was holding his hand in turn.

“I’m as unused to this as you are, Hux. It’s an option. Dopheld and Threes are going somewhere in the Unnamed Regions you apparently designated. We’d be stuck there together.”

“They’ll hunt us down,” Hux said.

“That’s not how it works, Hux, that’s what I’ve been trying to ignore myself.”

Hux looked incredulous.

“Think about it. Neither of us is dangerous anymore. Are you going to lead a rebellion against, well, the Rebellion? Build another Star Killer?”

Hux did not reply.

“You aren’t. Nothing would be gained by killing you. That’s not how they think. I know that you, having been raised in the First Order, can’t see that. Yet. But… it’s true. I know it, because I was lucky enough to be shown. And now I can show you.”

They sat together in silence as the ship hurtled towards their unknown fate, as many like it did in these times, into the dark, into a corner of the galaxy in which they could heal.

It was true. If there was one thing he could do, it was to try and save this one man

Trying to save one person was all anyone could ever do, even if that one person was yourself.


End file.
